North Carolina GOP HQ Firebombed

RLENT

Veteran Expediter
Sheriff Andy's (Sheriff Barney's ?) comments on the situation from a couple of days ago:

"During the event Sheriff Eric Hess said his office was well aware of Parks’ presence at the campaign office. “We’re keeping an eye on him,” he said. “He hasn’t broken any laws. But he’s going about it the wrong way by trying to intimidate folks.”

Hess said he and his deputies were monitoring the situation. “He’d be surprised if he knew we already know everything about him,” Hess said."

The statement is actually contradictory ... because the Sheriff concludes that the individual hasn't broken any laws (probably based on a very limited knowledge of the law) ... but yet he concludes the individual's intent is to intimidate.
 

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
No, no, no. I have already posted the Facebook message in its entirety. There was no reason whatsoever to post it again in it's entirety.
But apparently there was some reason to ommit a portion of what she was advised them to do in your subsequent statement.
Correct, and it is plainly stated in the text you quoted above. I saw no reason to post it again in its entirety, nor did I see any reason to be pedanticly verbose. Just because she gave them a choice of phone numbers call does not diminish the fact that she urged people to call 911.

Not only is hindsight 20/20, but it rewrites itself, as well. It's been proved that he didn't spend 12 hours or so staring into her campaign office, and he wasn't there for the particular purpose of staring into her office window. He was there to exercise his rights, campaign for Trump, and to hand out copies of the US Constitution.
That his claim, yes.
No reason to doubt his claim, as that's what he was actually doing and his actions didn't indicate a different purpose.

Case history mostly involves handbilling, picketting or protesting (free speech issues, all of them) usually political in nature. The courts have ruled “there is no open-ended invitation to the public to use the property for any and all purposes." In those cases, unless the nature of the free speech has a relation to any purpose for which the center was built and being used, it's not gonna be allowed (or at least the property owner can, if they wish, disallow it). But if there is a relationship between the purpose of the expressive activity and the business of the shopping center, the property rights of the center owner will overbalance the expressive rights to persons who would use their property for communicative purposes, and thus the expressive activity is protected.
There are significant problems with using a historical recounting of the state of the law at various times to make a point - particularly when one uses some portion of that recounting that reflected what the law was at some past point - due to court holdings at a particular point in time - but does not reflect what the state of the law is at present.
That is very true.

The language above (in bold) which apparently you believe is controlling, was held in Food Employees v. Logan Valley Plaza, Inc. 391 U.S. 308 (1968)

There is a subsequent case - Lloyd Corp., Ltd. v. Tanner 407 U.S. 551 (1972) - which holds otherwise. Anyone can read the full decision at the link below:
The Tanner case specifically addressed the distribution of handbills where the handbilling was unrelated to any activity within the center. How could you quote all that from the Justia page and completely miss the paragraph that contained the actual ruling? You nailed the preceding paragraph perfectly, but missed the one starting with "Held:" The final sentence in that paragraph is the actual ruling, and the court states why it ruled that way.

"Under the circumstances present in this case, where the handbilling was unrelated to any activity within the center and where respondents had adequate alternative means of communication, the courts below erred in holding those decisions controlling."

(Here's the same link to Justia again, just for convenience - Lloyd Corp., Ltd. v. Tanner 407 U.S. 551 (1972))

Virginia is one of 15 states (including Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, both Carolinas, Texas) with extremely narrow rules regarding the use of quasi-public space and they have declined to extend any right of free expression to privately owned property.
That's correct ... the specific controlling case as regards testing the issue in the State of Virginia appears to be Collins v. Shoppers' World, LLC, Va. Supreme Court. Here's a quick summary of what they held from the Rutherford Institute:
Like I said, Virginia declined to extend (beyond that of already existing law) any right of free expression to privately owned property, which Rich Collins wanted them to do. That case also dealt with handbilling that was unrelated to any activity within the center.

That means no handing out of handbills or gathering signatures to get someone or something on the ballot, and no political protests, unless the expressive activity is in directly relation to the shopping center or a business at the center.
If you are basing that qualification (highlighted in bold above) on Supreme Court jurisprudence, then that reasoning is flawed ... because you have focused on what used to be the state of the law under previous holdings (1968), rather than subsequent findings which served to clarify what the law is at present.
Nope, not flawed. Rock solid.
 

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
Possibly, but highly unlikely. The police didn't seem to think he was breaking any laws. Even Dittmar agreed that he wasn't breaking the law.
Well, it's quite possible that neither the police or Dittmar actually know the relevant case law that applies.

Same could probably be said for almost anyone.
True, but it's a lead pipe cinch the retail property owner knows the laws in that regard. That's why you see a lot of shopping centers with signs that specifically say no soliciting and/or no handbills. And people trying to exercise their freedom of speech in quasi-public spaces is so common that I would bet that most police officers are familiar with it. I can tell you for a slam dunk certainty that the Sterling Heights Police are bread-and-butter intimately familiar with it. <snort>

Plus, being a quasi-public space allows the police to enforce most of the laws that are reserved strictly for public places, like motor vehicle laws.
 

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
Sheriff Andy's (Sheriff Barney's ?) comments on the situation from a couple of days ago:

"During the event Sheriff Eric Hess said his office was well aware of Parks’ presence at the campaign office. “We’re keeping an eye on him,” he said. “He hasn’t broken any laws. But he’s going about it the wrong way by trying to intimidate folks.”

Hess said he and his deputies were monitoring the situation. “He’d be surprised if he knew we already know everything about him,” Hess said."

The statement is actually contradictory ... because the Sheriff concludes that the individual hasn't broken any laws (probably based on a very limited knowledge of the law) ... but yet he concludes the individual's intent is to intimidate.
Unless there was a posted notice of no trespassing or something like that, or the property owner objected to him being there, no laws were broken. People can protest on private property all they want if the owner doesn't object. It's not unlike taking pictures while on private property. You can snap away to your heart's content, right up until the owner says you can't. If you continue to take pictures... trespass.
 

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
And speaking of people that one would think should know the law (but actually don't), scope out this idiot's line of reasoning for why he thinks he should be able to prosecute journalists for doing what they do under that nasty ol' First Amendment thingie:

Good News! ‘Democracy Now!’ Host Amy Goodman Won’t Go To Jail For Doing Reporter Stuff

McClean County (ND) state's attorney ... doesn't get much better than that.
Happens all the time. It's why we have the First Amendment.

Remember Melissa Click? The University of Missouri adjunct professor who taught communications at the university's journalism school who tried to silence, and even threatened with physical violence, student journalists at the protest rally using the civil unrest at the school? The school fired her. She claims she was fired because she is white. The university disagreed, saying that "was fired because she didn’t know enough about journalists’ roles in public protests to know that threatening physical violence against students is not okay/" Boom.

She's not a communications professor at Gonzaga. In Spokane, Washington. Where white people pretend to be black.
 
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